I don’t trust a man,
who hasn’t tested the edge of his being,
with poverty,
his confidence,
with the threat of violence,
or his resolve,
with solitude and loneliness.
They’re measures,
which every person must pass through,
to determine the fabric or who they are,
to sell the world,
their humanity,
if not the world,
then at least the person you want to associate with.
I guess that is why I am mostly alone,
my yardstick and most of society’s,
don’t measure up.
I don’t reconcile well with the mundane,
nor the flamboyantly sophisticated,
and the people I’m attracted to and they me,
ironically don’t associate with me,
in concentric circles we move to and from each other,
perpetually.
I don’t trust a woman,
who sees being and existence,
through monetary markers,
her metrics of madness,
cannot reconcile with my propensity to violence,
at the drop of a hat,
towards a man that oversteps their mark.
She can be comfortable,
with the cushion of society,
that will constantly break her fall.
She can be seen,
for all that she wants to display,
there are always other eyes,
other hearts,
mine,
will never engage,
always caged.
She has no lashes she can buy or flutter,
no sigh she can moan or mutter,
no breast, she can heave,
nothing to sell me that proves she has a real pulse,
except a wayward gaze beyond me,
and to the creator of me.
Yes, I have trust issues,
and it is not without merit,
ashamed, guilty binding seams,
I let my ability to read people,
way before they commit to me their secrets,
contain me,
but when time and time again,
there it is splayed before me,
it reinforces that I knew well the truth,
and ignored my compass,
my distrust in people,
then becomes married to the distrust in myself,
and that is a knot I can never undo.
W.E.
lonerloaner 